Ew, nothing like 18 points in the final minute on your unders. New market bracket:

Market Odds

My best guess using Pinny/MB futures and game lines.

UTEP u132

UConn u149.5

Bodog also has some to win futures pretty out of line with Pinny.

ND -3

SDSU -3.5

Pacific +5.5

Baseball model is finished. It's not any different than last year except it's not a total PECOTA whore this time. Season starts in a couple weeks.

Baseball is a lot like CBB, or just about any sport. Openers for the first month or two of the season can be way off. It took books weeks to adjust to consistent early Rays betting last year, although they're probably an extreme example. If you bet it, start early, imo.

Bodog Still Sucks at Props

2000 simulations using market bracket:

2000 simulations using Pinny's FF futures (yes/no vig free):

Error range of about 1.5% again for the big %s.

0 has some value. 1 at 12/1 is just a total linesetting fail. $75 max. The BE and B12 props have no value.

Penn St. +11.5

Greek has some tourny futures up, including what I think are fair ~ prices on Michigan St. FF (+325), Connecticut to win (+665), and UNC FF/to make final (-155/+155). Really only useful if you need to hedge a small amount and have most of the dogs still in the race.

Duke (+1615), Memphis (+805), and Kansas (+3250) also all have about fair odds to win on Greek if you need to hedge there.

I don't think anything but Michigan St. FF has much value on it's own.

Bracket updated to reflect changing MLs. I also took UConn/Purdue down a notch, that half of the bracket got a little too high of a general uptick during reconciliation.

March Madness Week to Date

So I spent some time earlier talking about how donkarific some of the openers are for the first weekend of March Madness. Capping results:

Spreads: 6-5 (eWin%: 55.4%)
Totals: 3-3 (eWin%: 55.6%)

Running a half-win below expectation unfortunately, but March didn't get any sharper this year. Sweet Sixteen and beyond will probably be more difficult.

And below is the YTD, rolling 100 plays to smooth out the variance. Mostly a whole lot of run good, but some of that is CBB being inefficient at the start of the year. Lately, a whole lot of run bad, but equity has actually picked up a little from midway through.

Taking Xavier +7 and Zaga +8.5 small.

Market bracket is up. It's facially strange how odds get worse for some teams that win games, but a lot of that early equity is wrapped in top teams' upset potential. 1/2/3 seeds aren't losing. The odds of them winning all 24 games was really small.

Remember that this bracket is done on a snapshot basis. The Pinnacle moneylines are obviously very fresh, so I'll redo this in a couple days when the lines sharpen a bit. Or, if some gigantic 2pt movement occurs or something.

New market bracket on the right. Everything again adjusted to match current Pinnacle lines if applicable. Obviously I'm guessing at some lines that aren't out yet (UNC/Zaga, Duke/Nova).

Weeeee swongs. 3 and 4 points of equity on the total, 1.5 points on the sides... and 0-3 with two late game screwjobs.

More losing plays with big equity coming in a bit, going to add to the last post.

Also, I'll update the market bracket in a bit through today's games.

Yay run like god yesterday in late game. Good equity, 5-1 capping plays, fail on steam chasing.

Ship bodog 6/7 midmajor too

ASU u139.5
Oakland o138
Richmond -4
Kansas -7.5

Just Pick Winners?

Bleh, a gross 6-11 past three days with average expected win% of 54.2%

Equity is worthless imo

UConn u139.5

UNC o155

Zaga -10

Penn St. -1

Just going through Bodog's props real quick. Limits are $150, so nothing to get too excited about. Greek had some great last longers (Clemson v. BC -130, Purdue vs. FSU -130, etc) but those pretty much insta-move when hit, so I can't post those up here really. They look about fair for the most part right now.

2000 simulations using Pinnacle moneylines:

Error range is ~1.5% for the higher odds wins (5-8). Betting 6 and 7 on bodog has some value.

March Madness Bracket Odds

March madness bracket odds are over on the right finally, and it's my best estimation of a true market bracket. All the first round games' win percentages should roughly match up with Pinny as of a couple hours ago. Again, mostly I just tweaked high level efficiency stats to get as close as possible to deriving the 1st round line, and past two games' lines. Actual game lines could easily be off by a point or two in the next round, there's really no way to hit it completely on the head with a high level formula. But, it hopefully tempers some of the more major over/under expectations of KenPom vs. market. Using spread -> ML conversions also avoids the log5 underrating big faves problem.

One major caveat: teams are static throughout the entire tournament in this analysis. Fairly obviously, a 10 seed making a run to the Final Four is probably going to be less of a dog in the Final Four than they'd be against that same team right now. A 1 seed in the FF is more likely to have simply met expectations, and won't see a similar market boost. So, favorites' odds are probably somewhat overstated, underdogs' odds somewhat understated. North Carolina is very overstated if Lawson is seriously hurt. This presumes healthy Lawson.

Got too busy to finish market bracket today, will be up by end of tomorrow. I suck etc, it's really not all that different than pom. You won't be dashing off to some line that looks meh right now.

Bodog props (very low maxes):

Will a #1 ranked seed (Louisville, Pittsburgh, Connecticut, North Carolina) win the March Madness 2009 Tournament?

-No +190 has sick value (+100 fair)

Totals:
UCLA o135 (small)
Cuse u134.5 (big)
ASU u124

WVA u129

Memphis u132.5

Other tournaments (all small):

UNLV +7.5

Washington St. +4

Troy -1

Kentucky u135

Washington St. u120

Pacific u128.5

K St. u138

Vermont o145.5

I'm out to Vegas in the morning, so I'll miss totals if they come out then. I'd expect a market odds bracket to be up fairly late tomorrow night. So long as the books get their props out, I'll be done hitting most of what I need to by then.

Duke +2750 on Greek is off (not finished, but prob 17-1 by market).
So is Louisville last longer vs. UConn +120 and Louisville vs. UNC +200 on Greek. Those lines should be something more like -150 and +120, but again, not quite finished with market odds. UConn's draw is horrible, Louisville's is the easiest path of the #1s.

I'm almost done making a market odds bracket for the real thing. It'll be up late tomorrow. There's probably already 80 zillion KenPom log5 brackets out there if you're jonesing.

Openers:
Cal pk
Minnesota +4.5
American +18.5
Morgan St. +17.5
Robert Morris +17.5
Wisconsin +3 (small)
Ohio St. -3 (small)
Michigan +6 (small)

Wash -4.5 (small)

small steam chase gogogog:

Marquette -4.5

WV -9

That's it for now, probably.

Probably no plays tomorrow. I'm leaving for the day very early, and I have no clue when these totals for the 10AM games are going to show up.

The futures/props have started out better than ever. I had max amounts of:

Zaga +100
Kent St. +1200
Akron +800, +650
Temple +550
ASU +650
WV +1500
UNC +150 (bad in retrospect because of Lawson's injury)

Ended up somewhere around 6u, and wouldv'e been a little more if I hadn't hedged so damn much, but EG is EG.

I don't know how quickly March props will come up once brackets are announced, but it's criminal not to be well funded at several sites for this. I'll throw up anything I spot as usual.

Nice! Psyched out Gamblor apparently, since the 2H sides that helped the game bets went 3-1 today.

3-1 on the day, one total flat, one a couple points of equity, big equity on Missouri side, and not much movement on the FSU side. The FSU line seemed like an anomaly. +9 is about two points worse than I'd expect with Lawson, and that team seems a hell of lot worse than two points without the most efficient player in the nation and virtually nothing talented to replace him. Market knows better I guess.

3/15
No sides, totals are late.

3/14 (bet the 2H opposite side obv)

FSU +9

Binghampton o134

Late morning lines:

Missouri -4 (full unit)

Morgan St. o133

Bracketologists

The Bracket Project keeps track of a crapload of internet and TV bracketologists, and updates their selections daily. Here's a link to a giant matrix of those various bracketologists' predictions as of last night.

http://bracketproject.50webs.com/matrix.htm

I don't know if there's much wisdom in the aggregate, since a large chunk of these guys must have a learning disability. I'll bet my grandmother that Oakland and Weber St. don't make the tournament. But, remove the whackos and there might be something to it.

I'm not entirely sure if their bracket is just an aggregate of everyone they survey, or if they do their own, but it looks much better than B101. They also have Memphis as a #1 seed, which I'm not sure about, but I love seeing it on paper given how much of their futures I have. Bracket Project's aggregate bracket, or whatever it is, is here:

http://bracketproject.50webs.com/

That bracket will be over on the right shortly. Ultimately the seeding and regions aren't huge deal-breakers for futures, provided you have some diversification. But, it's helpful to have at least a couple scenarios. That way you know whether to pound 40-1 on the strip when 20-1 looks fair in one bracket, or if the value is just a mirage because their draw is best case scenario.

Deja Vu x 13,546

2-3 today on the big bets made last night, with 2-0 totals, 0-3 sides, still ended up slightly because of higher bets on totals, but this. is. getting. absurd.

Guess how you would have done betting those 2H line that helped the big game bets. Yep, 1-4 again. This is nuts, I'm approaching lottery ticket territory with the 2H screwage over the past could hundred bets. If it goes on any longer I'm just auto-hedging everything at the half on the assumption I've stumbled ass backwards into some miraculous method of predicting 2H losers at a high 50's% rate with a full-game handicapping system. Part of me isn't 100% joking either, I mean, we're getting out there with the standard deviations on the null hypothesis that these 2Hs are coinflips.

Anyway, equity was great again. All three sides had 1.5 points of equity (each is ~56% to win) the two totals had about 1 and 3.5 points equity, but of course <.500 once more. Nothing in late game went right again, each side blew a late lead, and two teams allow offensive rebounds with seconds remaining on FTs that prevent them from even trying to send it to OT. Std.

The much smaller late bets did well, 4-1, but I didn't have enough on them. I'm a little surprised at the equity I got betting that late - which I guess makes sense for lines that don't even come out until morning. I'll probably continue adding normal sized bets (mostly totals likely) in the mid-morning going forward even if I'm late to open by a couple hours. I probably won't get the best number, but I don't think being an hour late or so is akin to dart throwing anymore, after having looked back through all the movement over the last couple days for the late lines.

Akron $300 to win $2400 on Greek from a while back is worth ~$1450 right now, if you need to hedge:

MAC odds to win

Ball St.    .072

Buffalo    .379

B. Green  .172

Akron      .376

March Madness Bracket Odds

Lunardi's bracket is updating every day now. His new one is over on the right. Big winners recently (in Pom) are Zaga and WV.

Retrospective

Something I haven't really covered is the progression of equity throughout the year.

I'm not an authority on CBB, but I have pretty good knowledge derived from data analysis, plus I know a few people who have been at this longer than I have and do this professionally. And no, I'm not talking about random 50 year old guy who lives in Vegas, reads box scores all day, and makes decisions overusing concepts like "motivation" or "they're due", or rely on sample sizes of three games to make definitive conclusions. I mean the career lineshoppers with large valuable databases.

Very succinctly, CBB is pretty beatable, and it stays that way throughout the year (for totals at least). Totals are far easier to beat. Anyway, there's a reason limits are lower for CBB, and lower for totals. The first few months, through January or so, it's not uncommon to beat totals by 7+ points or sides by 2+ points on a fairly regular basis. In recent history, close isn't even efficient during this period. It's actually profitable to bet large lines moves AFTER the steam is finished, for many subsets. Lines just don't get moved enough. I don't know if that's a function of low limits and limited volume to sufficiently move lines, or what. In the 2nd half of the season, openers sharpen, 1 point on sides and 3 or 4 points on totals are more frequently the best movements of your day. Betting after steam is still >50%, but doesn't beat vig. Essentially, for a winning bettor, your equity against close for the first half of the year is understated, but it's a good barometer for the 2nd half of the season. This season bears out the dramatic change in the market pretty strikingly.

It hovers around 57%, and then crashes down to 54%. Last year was identical. My totals system has never changed. I've only paid more attention to recency biases after about a month at 53%, and gained about 1% of equity for it. I'm not sure what happens, like if some switch gets flipped at the line makers book and they go from 'thumb in the wind' or 'just use last years lines' to a more technical analysis with current season stats. Limits are low, so it's not terribly costly to let bettors sharpen your lines when data is scarce in the beginning of the year. Midway through, it's pretty easy to make a line. In the long run, over the 2nd half, my actual winning percentage shouldn't deviate much from the 54%, assuming I can keep getting the equity. 

I ran over expected (60%+) at the start, which happened last year as well, and has for many other people. Close just isn't efficient. Around the drop, I've typically run almost exactly at expectation, plus a very small handicapping edge from a close that still isn't truly efficient, but not exploitable on it's own either. I'm running a little below expectation over the last 75 or so because I can't buy a 1 or 2pt win and run really bad at avoiding or hitting overtimes. Going forward, 54-55% is roughly expectation.

The sides are a similar story. They get more action and have higher limits, making it progressively harder after the midseason magical switch flip. Unless you play just a game or two per day, or less, you likely don't get enough equity against close to cover vig. The value there is totally derived from a (hopefully) small handicapping edge that gets you around 53%. At this point in the year, for sides I'd really do better to just focus on lineshopping and get in before steam fully moves something. The expectation should be about the same if you're any good at it, and it's less work. But, I'm addicted to this stuff and don't have time to squat on Pinnacle and race to insta-hit any line that twitches.

Assuming Cal under loses (it's a huge dog right now): 1-3-1 today, with an OT under kill and flurry of points in final 13 seconds to push maryland.

Every total had 2-4 pts of equity, some of the biggest moves off open all day. And again, 1-4 vs. the 2H line that helps the game line obv, with the 1 win vs the 2H line already a huge favorite at the half. This has been going on for weeks, so frustrating.

Just for fun (massochism): Record on totals, last five weeks, final score 2.5pts or less from my lines: 4-14. For within 1.5 pts of my line, 1-8. Record was only even for those before the last five weeks. Big negative OT unders vs OT overs disparity too.

3/13

Wisconsin -1.5

Texas -3

BYU -1.5

Totals:

Louisville u143

LSU u140.5

Late morning adds (Getting in after movements, unlikey to get equity. Update: wow, these did get equity, I'm not used to this kind of movement past noon. Probably standard when games are added in the morning. System probably is still valid missing morning openers - I'll continue to bet and track late adds assuming I get up early enough to not totally miss the boat.)

Tenn u150

CSUN -2.5

LA Tech +10

ASU u140.5

Holy Cross +5

I'll prob be adding some sides in a bit. Pretty good equity on the totals, so I don't feel like a schmuck for going under heavy. Starting out with a Miami FL under win, and the Ball St. under just got blown up by an overtime. Running just insanely terrible in the last minute of these conference tournament games, if you need someone to miss/hit a FT, it's not happening.

Also FYI, if you got the bet, I'm hedging some of the Buffalo/Kent St. Game. That $300 to win $3600 is currently worth ~$925. Just betting enough to win $300 and recoup losses. If you lose you get most of the equity back in the implied worth of the Kent St. position. Either team will be big favorites (~8) against Ball St., then the final game will be another near coinflip against Miami OH or Akron in all probability. In that scenario it's worth more around $750-$800, but there's value in the chance Miami OH/Akron loses to Bowling Green or Ohio (inferior by several points).

I have a slightly +EV Miami OH position, so I'm not doing the same with Akron, which has less equity in it anyway (the $300 is worth ~$550).

3/12

VT u138.5

Maryland u143

Ball St. u116.5

Utah St. u134

California u139.5

Yeah - all unders, but totals openers to date for tournament games have generally been exhibiting about 3-4 pts+ under what I'd expect to see during conference play. Todays lines, for some of the tournys, aren't following the trend. I don't know what the deal is, but there's definitely been statistical justification for the several point drop in totals over prior years tournaments. Shrug, be wary of these possibly. 

3-1 totals today, good equity. Just a smidge of equity on sides, which went 1-2-1. Again, totals clearly have higher edges, I'm generally betting half units on sides and full units on totals. Come opening round after selection Sunday, that's definitely going to change. Spread lines get made for Joe Public too, and some start way off.

Conference Tournament Maket Odds

I'm using current Pinnacle (or BM for Thursday) lines for upcoming games plus the past two conference games lines as predictors of projected game lines for every possible matchup in the bracket, then dropping it in the tournament matrix. I'll keep tracking MAC for any of you who managed to get Kent St. +1200 or Akron +800.

The schedules and seeding are here: Conference Tournament Schedules

Google Documents Fair Odds for Tournaments:

Big East - Louisville easiest double bye path

SEC - 1pt HCA for Florida (games in Tampa)

Big 12 - 1pt HCA for Oklahoma and OK St. (games in OKC)

ACC

Big 10 - 1pt HCA for Indiana and Purdue (games in Indy)

Pac 10 - 2pts HCA for UCLA and USC (games in LA)

MAC

March Madness Bracket Odds

Most sites seem to be on hiatus with March futures right now, but Bracketology 101's new bracket will be up on the right in the next few minutes.

Update: Or not, they won't bother to put up the bracket, they just list teams and seeds and I don't feel like snaking through it to put everyone in the right region. They have some teams still in that seem ridiculous too, so I'm losing my faith in them. If anyone knows of a better prognasticator, let me know and I'll start using them. They make Lunardi look brilliant, and he doesn't even forecast remaining schedules.

Anyway, I am about to create some Google docs with market odds (well as best as I can do to predict future lines) on the conference tournments that have yet to start. I'll keep a running one for MAC too, in case you got in on Akron or Kent St. Hopefully it'll help spot some value, as some pretty square books have started to put up conference tournament futures.

Ugh, lots of 2H ridiculousness today. Running ~43% over the last few weeks on the 2H Pinnacle line that's the same side as the game bet. That's really hard to do. If I was a little more results oriented I'd switch to 1Hs, but I still have a few brain cells that aren't on tilt right now.

3/10

WKY -4.5

Seton Hall u131.5

3/11

Providence -9

UCF -3

Col St. -2

CSUF -2.5 (late add, just noticed UCRs injuries)

Providence o143.5

Texas u130.5

UCF o132

Marquette u141

Neutral court backwork done yesterday and just finished fatigue backwork, so I'm betting normal units on the totals.

FYI SEC tourny Odds changed to reflect yesterday's games and 1.5 pts HCA for Florida.

Also, I used the moneylines for tomorrow's MAC games for the first round games, then reconciled high level efficency stats to replicate the close of the last two conference MAC games as best I could. So, I'm now using those "adjusted adjusted" efficiency stats to create hypo game lines for all possible MAC games, and converting to a win%. The new odds are reflected in the old MAC post, and it's not really true KenPom anymore. I just wanted a better idea of my market equity on Akron and Kent St. should I need to hedge if lucky enough to get either into the finals.

3/10

Would bet Kent St. -11, if I hadn't maxed +1200 to win tourny.

Totals (teams didn't play yesterday)

Kent St. o132.5

Ohio o123.5

Weber St. o131.5

These include observed neutral court and tournament effects on totals. I'm making a scaling adjustment for that, but otherwise using the same totals system.

Bracket Odds / Lunardi

March Madness bracket odds for Lunardi's Monday release is over on the right. Zaga gets a huge boost overperforming ATS last night by 25pts.

3/9

I'm already invested in Zaga's win tonight, but Zaga -6.5 would be a play.

WKY -3.5

CoC -2.5

Niagara +4.5

Would also all be plays, but I've got fatigue backwork to do on disparate fatigue (bottom 3), so I'm not counting/betting these for now. I should be done with that sometime today.

Big 10 Tournament / KenPom

Illini  +480

Mich  +3900

M. St.  +250

Minn  +3300

NW  +4800

OSU  +1425

PSU  +5025

Purd  +290

Wisc  +780

Field  +7800

No value vs. Greek. The games are in Indianapolis. I have not included any HCA. If you assume Purdue has 2pts HCA, they're +190 fair, and then +250 on Greek has value. I don't know how much HCA the market will assign to these games.

ACC Tournament / KenPom

BC   +24650

Clem  +1200

Duke  +260

FSU  +3750
Mary  +23150

Miami  +5450

UNC  +120

NCST  +44500

VT  +70900

Wake  +660

Field  +N/A

Pretty bizarre that on Greek UNC +150 is the only thing that has value here. Obviously it's slim, but Pom rarely has hypo game line bets on UNC, too.

WAC Tournament / KenPom

Boise  +1830

Fresno  +15500

Hawaii  +12100

Idaho  +1680

La Tech  +1680

NMS   +1575

Nevada  +220

SJSU  +4620

Utah St.  +140

Games are in Reno, giving Nevada 2pts HCA. No value vs. Greek.

SEC Tournament / KenPom

Alab  +6175

Ark  +57500

Aub  +765

Flo  +500

Kent  +950

LSU  +490

Miss  +7860

M. St.  +2130

S. C.  +590

Tenn  +415

Vand  +2660

Field  +N/A

Florida getting 1.5 pts HCA for games in Tampa.

MAC Tournament / Market

Akron +800, Kent St. +1200 (opposite sides of bracket) on Greek. Akron value is medium, Kent St. value is are-you-kidding-me territory.

Akron  +490

Ball St.  +2310

BG   +930

Buffalo  +360

CMich  +8340

Kent  +485

Miami  +350

NIU  +98440

WMich  +16000

Ohio  +1680

Field  +N/A

Temple +550 on Bodog. I reconstructed A10 approximating market odds, and the edge is ~15%.

Big East Tournament / KenPom

Structure: See Pac 10 link.

Cinci   +30000

UConn  +340

GTown  +2900

LVille  +325

Marq  +2600

N. D.  +14500

Pitt  +370

Prov  +40000

S. Hall  +N/A

Cuse  +1700

Nova  +1000

W. V.  +1000

Field  +N/A

Double bye system makes it incredibly difficult to win as a lower seed. West Virginia is 15-1 on Bodog, WV is a team KenPom likes a little more than the market, but there is probably some small value there.

A10 Tournament / KenPom

Structure: See Pac 10 link.

Dayt  +615

Duqu  +3900

La Sa  +7300

Mass  +12000

R. I.  +550

Rich  +4300

St. Jo.  +4600

St. Lo.  +14000

Temp  +425

Xavi  +150
Field  +N/A

Xaiver +200 and Temple +500 on Greek. Pom has a mancrush on Xavier, so the value is pretty slim if not non-existent. Pom also has a smaller Temple bias on a game basis. Again, nothing to get excited about.

MWC Tournament / KenPom

Structure: See Pac 10 link.

BYU +150

NM  +410

SDSU  +1020

UNLV  +1020

Utah  +350

Field  +N/A

This includes 2pts HCA for UNLV (games are in Las Vegas). BYU +175 on Greek, but Pom has a giant mancrush on BYU. You'd do better rolling over MLs. No value elsewhere.

B12 Tournament / KenPom

Structure: See Pac 10 link.

Bayl  +13000

Kans  +250

K. St.  +1650

Miss  +320

Nebr  +8200

Okla  +320

O. St.  +1375

Texas  +1200

T. A&M  +5200

Field  +N/A

This includes 2pts HCA for the Okahoma teams (games are in OK City). Missouri +350 and Ok St. +1500 seemingly have a little value, but Pom loves Missouri a couple points more than the market, and my 2pts HCA for Oklahoma teams is not necessarily what the market will apply.

Pac10 Tournament / KenPom

Structure: http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/champweek2009/news/story?page=ncb_champweek2009#pac10

Ariz  +2400

A. St.  +570

Cali  +1800

Stan  +6300

UCLA  +130

USC   +1200

Wash   +425

W. St.  +2700

Field  +N/A

This includes 2pts HCA for the LA teams (all games in Staples). Small value on ASU +650 on Greek, but not much.

Finally, lots of run good on some 2H coin flips. Clearly I should be avoiding b2b totals, those didn't go well, not much equity, and I don't have fatigue data - which probably makes the true game system lines irrelevant, hence the micro unit test I guess. Oh well, probably means not a lot of totals betting over the later rounds of the conference tournaments. I suspect I can still generally use spread lines for teams that are similarly fatigued (ie: no one just had a bye).

Conference tournament futures that should be up by Monday. I'll put odds for those after I get a chance to hit. Greek and Bodog are the main books I've seen these from, and I think Bodog might just be copying Greek after Greek's sharpened up. So, be loaded there.

3/8

Troy pk (late system)

WKY o135

3/7

Sides (all late system, all very small units):

New Mexico -3.5

UTEP -1

Totals:

Cuse o156

Memphis u131.5

UVA u142.5

Stanford o141.5

Boise St. o141.5

Radford o167

Beware the following, not really system plays, since these are all back-to-back games and I don't use a fatigue factor in CBB (usually irrelevant with multiple days off), but the value seems enormous. Maybe fatigue really is worth that much? Putting very cautious units on these:

Yale o129

Northeastern o121 <-best one

Creighton o134

Portland o129

Update: yeah, they're not moving much, but it's micro units so w/e.

2H lines:

halftime mechanical system:

Georgetown u68

Miami u73

game-sub lines (game systems bets, didn't get around to betting)

Pitt o75 +1

Hall +2

Utah u69

GM -4

New March Madness bracket odds over on the right with Lunardi's Friday release.

Finally getting some 2H help on the totals tonight (as in didn't lose the UC Davis coin flip). Big equity on Cal over which won and was a heavy fave at the half. Ridiculous amount of points in the final minutes of the game- but very few of which I actually needed. Save those pts for an over in jeopardy plz.

3/6

Marymount +14.5 (late system)

Also, here's Monday's Lunardi / KenPom, updated through yesterday's games. You can compare with the 3/3 link on the right to see how much a huge over/underperformance moves the odds even this late in the year. Kansas goes from 12-1 to 20-1 with their 30pt+ underperformance vs. Texas Tech.

1-2 sides, 2-2 totals. Still losing the majority of 2H coinflips. You'd be 5-2 today if you bet the 2H side that didn't help the game pick. Same story going back about two weeks. Ended up slightly from the bigger bets, but running terribad on 2H coinflips needs to end.

3/5

Ariz -4: very late add, early system play (using some home split stats from past few years, little recency)

Totals:

Cal o141 (max)

UC Davis o153 (moved on me, adding)

Baseball Is Here

Getting started back on the baseball model. BP and crockpot released season win projections, I'll see if I can't work up a reasonable approximation of what some other systems would say.

BP: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/fantasy/dc/

crockpot: http://playoffodds.blogspot.com/

Chone: http://www.baseballprojection.com/2009standings.htm

Here's some good banter comparing projection systems between the actual publishers of those systems (Nate Silver, tangotiger, etc). I consider PECOTA the gold standard, but it doesn't have a huge leg-up. Its advantage is nearly entirely on the margins. In essence, systems almost always effectively agree, but when PECOTA and another major projection system disagree heavily on a player, PECOTA is going to be more right ~55-60% of the time. The exception to that is probably Chone, where the advantage is very slight.

http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/forecast_evaluations/

I'm working on evaluating the systems for the past couple years and coming up with custom projections that just rip off the current systems, but adjusted for demonstrated bias. It might be fruitless, but I'm hoping the sum of the parts, properly evaluated, is a slight improvement over just starting with PECOTA projections to start the year.

I feel like a surprised chicken whenever saying PECOTA in my head.

Odds to Win Big East

Bodog just threw this up, and they surprisingly did an ok job. In case you've got a horse from that same prop earlier in the year, Pitt and UConn are relatively fair hedges (2/1 and 5/4). This includes all tiebreaker situations. Pitt wins in a three-way tie (15 wins all), Louisville wins in a tie with UConn (16 wins for both).

Connecticut    .42

Louisville        .25

Pittsburgh      .33

2-2 today, 2-1 sides, 0-1 total. More crap from last week on the total again - beat close by 2, looking good late, but they manage to put up 31 points in the final three minutes. Standard.

3/4

BYU -7.5

Iowa St. +9

UAB pk

Totals:

Miami FL u141

Pitt o146.5 (maxed)

Missouri o152.5 (greek better line, also 1u on 153 on BM)

North Texas o146.5 (marginal, might hedge out if I get a few points on it)

Bracket Odds

New March Madness bracket odds using KenPom on the right for Lunardi's Monday update. Kansas got a big boost in Pom for soulcrushing Missouri (a Pom top 10 team) on Sunday. BYU got one too from beating Utah and SDSU (both Pom top 50) by 10+ points. BYU 250-1 is widely available. Pom is obviously a little high on them, but fair market lines would be ~125-1 using recent game lines as a guide. Shrug, it's still a flier. Lunardi's West Bracket is particularly brutal (Pom #1,2 both in the same region), so everyone's odds there will be a little depressed. The converse is true for Oklahoma's bracket.

Bracketology 101's will be up shortly.

1-0 today on the total. Beat close by 2.5 pts.

3/3

Weber St. -3.5

Youngstown St. +2.5

Milwaukee -7

Totals:

Utah u138

Also someone brought to my attention that opening rounds for some of those tournys aren't neutral site. I'll fix the odds, it might make some mid-seeds decent bets. That'll be done within the hour.

Horizon fixed - that's the only one. It didn't change much.

Greek Tournament Futures / KenPom - CAA

Delaware              +11500

Drexel                  +1500

George Mason       +385

Hofstra                +5000

James Madison      +4300

Northeastern         +600

Old Dominion         +650

VCU                    +165

Field                    +N/A

No value vs. Greek. Pom likes VCU more than market, and the edge is worthlessly slim over +175 anyway.

Greek Tournament Futures / KenPom - MVC

Approximate odds:

Bradley              +1100

Creighton           +195

Drake                +3000

Evansville           +1700

Illinois St.           +400

Indiana St.         +15000

Missouri St.        +19000

Northern Iowa     +425

Southern Illinois   +1850

Wichita St.         +4600

No value vs. Greek.

Greek Tournament Futures / Kenpom - WCC

WCC Bracket, similar structure. Top two seeds only need to win two games.

Approximate odds:

Gonzaga         -210

Pepperdine      +N/A

Portland          +2300

St. Mary's       +300

San Diego       +11000

Santa Clara     +6100

Field               +N/A

Fixed for an override on Santa Clara/San Diego I didn't catch.

I maxed ($300) Gonzaga +100 on Greek. Get it while it's hot. Pom likes Zaga a little more than the market, but not 20% chance to win more. They'll be ~7 point+ favorites (somewhat depends on Mills) in both games, much more over non-St. Mary's teams.

Greek Tournament Futures / KenPom - Horizon

Horizon League tournament KenPom lines:

Odds are heavily stacked against non 1,2 seeds, who have to win two games just to meet the 1,2 seeds.

Approximate odds:

Butler                  -105
Cleveland St.        +575
Detroit                 +N/A
Green Bay            +320
Illinois Chicago      +8000
Loyola Chicago      +77000
Milwaukee            +7800
Valparaiso            +90000
Wright St.            +1250
Youngstown St.    +65000

No value vs. Greek anymore, plus Pom has a crush on Butler vs. market.

2-0 sides, both beat close, Buffalo by more than a point.

3-4 totals, crushed close again (54.8% expected vs. close), but had a losing day yet again. This side of variance is not so fun. I'll do the weekly update in a bit, this should be fun/depressing.

Last Week (Record / Win% / eWin%):

All bets:  28-39-3 / 41.8% / 52.5%

Early system spreads:  2-8-1 / 20.0% / 51.4% (now defunct)

Late system spreads:  9-6-0 / 60.0% / 51.4%

Totals:  17-25-2 / 40.5% / 54.2%

Totals are pretty gross. 60% hit rate on totals days were probably over sometime in January. Mid 50%s should still be sustainable just on closing line value.

3/2

Nova u159

The Greek

FWIW, Greek should be listing conference tournament winner futures for all the main conferences in a week. They also throw up a lot of March-related props, so I'd highly recommend loading up on Greek. I'll throw up kenpom + market odds here for all the various props/futures they start putting up. Although March opening round game lines should be soft, there's likely to be a lot of value in badly mispriced props/futures.